Forest of Ruin

by Kelley Armstrong

  She stopped short.

  "Why does no one come out?" she asked.

  "Hmm?"

  "If we are here because your mother is within, should she not be guarded?"

  "Well guarded, yes, if only to save my father from the humiliation of having his wife taken by his enemy."

  "Then why have they allowed us to get so close? There's nothing out here. Nothing. There ought to be a scout perched on that ridge. Does your father have no decent archers?"

  "He does." Gavril turned in a full circle, shading his eyes.

  "Come along, boy!" Toman shouted. "I wish to leave before sundown."

  "It's a trap," Moria murmured.

  "By the bandits?" Gavril said. "Or someone waiting within?"

  "Does it matter? Either way is equally dangerous to us."

  "Come on, boy!" Toman said. "Bring out your mother!"

  Gavril looked at Moria. Then he called back, "You do it."

  "If you insist . . . and you don't mind me bringing out her head."

  Gavril shot forward. He stopped himself but rocked there, glancing between Moria and the house.

  "Why do you look to the girl, boy?" Toman called. "Does your enemy give you counsel now?"

  "No," Moria called back. "He fears turning his back on me, lest I have only been cordial to him in preparation for attack. Come on then, Kitsune. Let's get this over with." They started for the house. When they drew up alongside it, she turned to Toman. "You stand out here because you fear walking into a trap. Do you trust that Lady Kitsune's guards will not mistakenly cut down Gavril and spoil your chance for his bounty?"

  "True. You'd best go with him, then, to be sure they do not."

  Moria snorted. "I hardly care--"

  "Start caring." Toman strode forward and slapped her dagger into her hand. "He is the one Emperor Tatsu truly wants. If he dies in an ambush, I'll not take you back to the city alive, for fear you'll tell the emperor what happened and he'll have my head for it."

  "Arm him as well," Moria said.

  "Listen to you, little girl. Talking as if you're a warlord--"

  "I am the Keeper. I outrank every warlord in this land. If you wish the traitor to survive this trap, provide him with a weapon."

  Toman motioned for someone to bring Gavril a sword.

  "I'll take a sword, too," Moria said. "I have been training and--"

  "Do not push your luck."

  "Luck is meant to be pushed."

  "And you are lucky that I admire your mettle, little girl, or I'd not appreciate your tongue." His grin turned wolfish as he stepped toward her. "Perhaps I can come to appreciate it more on the remainder of this journey."

  "I'm sure you will, though not in the way you hope."

  He only laughed. "We'll see." He winked. "There's a reason I have three very happy wives. Now take your dagger and bring me a true traitor's whore."

  SIXTEEN

  "I think I prefer you unsettled," Gavril muttered as they moved toward the door. "You are less a danger to yourself and others. Don't provoke the man, Keeper."

  "I was getting you a blade, Kitsune."

  "And I'm asking you to be careful. Now, if we may . . ."

  He motioned at the closed door. His face was calmer, the strain and worry temporarily vanished. For Gavril, that brief argument had been steady ground, settling him as much as the dagger in her hand settled Moria.

  She eyed the door. "Perhaps we ought to look for a secondary entrance, to avoid ambush."

  He nodded, and they both stepped back.

  "What are you doing?" Toman called, his voice echoing across the plain.

  "So much for the element of surprise," Moria muttered.

  "I believe we lost that when they decided to stand in the yard and wait for us."

  "True." She turned to Toman and motioned that they were looking for another way in.

  "Why?" he called. "That door is as good as any."

  Moria muttered, "He truly wants us going in this way."

  "Hmmm."

  "When Tyrus and I walked through a door into a potential trap, I kept to the rear to cover him."

  "When did you and Tyrus do such a thing?"

  "In Fairview."

  "You returned to--? Yes, of course you would." He glanced at her. "So you saw . . ."

  "Yes, I saw what the shadow stalkers had done."

  He swallowed. "You ought not to--"

  "--have returned to try to free the town and save Edgewood's children?"

  "Ought not to have needed to witness that. I had no idea my father intended--"

  "Kitsune? I know. We will speak later. For now . . ."

  "Yes. Your plan is sound. I will go first."

  Moria stood at his back, dagger raised. Gavril pushed the door. It did not budge. He eyed it and seemed ready to bash his shoulder into it when she whispered, "You cannot fight with a dislocated sword arm, Kitsune. Kick it."

  He hesitated.

  "If you fall on your arse, I'll not laugh." She paused. "Or not loudly."

  He gave her a look and then positioned himself and kicked. The door flew open. Gavril lunged through with his sword at the ready and Moria at his shoulder, and they swept into a darkened room. When nothing inside moved, Moria pushed the door open farther, allowing the rays of the falling sun to light the interior.

  "Kiri?" Gavril called, and when Moria frowned in confusion, he said, "My mother."

  To call one's mother by her given name was not something she'd ever heard. A mother who would not own the title and a father who did not deserve it. What kind of childhood could one have under such circumstances?

  "Kiri?" he called again. "It's Gavril."

  Silence answered, a quiet stillness that crept into her bones. She shook it off and walked about the small room. It was sumptuously decorated, as comfortable as any court lodgings. There was a lantern beside a pile of pillows. When she turned the light on, she saw a book tucked into pillows. A romantic novel, the simple sort, well illustrated for those without enough education to read a lengthy tome. She looked down at the pillows and imagined the woman who'd been here. Held a virtual prisoner in luxury, left alone with pretty stories of other lives, better lives, happier lives.

  She set the book down. "Kiri?" she called, in case a feminine voice might help. "I am Moria, Keeper of Edgewood. I'm here with Gavril to help you."

  Not even a distant rustle answered. She motioned to Gavril that they ought to check the other rooms. He approached the first door. He opened it and went through while she guarded and then followed.

  This room looked like servant or guard quarters. Empty. They backed out and tried the next. The kitchen. There was only one room left and it had to be Kiri's bedroom. But when Moria stepped in, all she could think was There's a child living here, too?

  It was as perfect a bedchamber as any girl of nine or ten summers could wish, filled with dolls from every part of the empire, every shade of skin and style of clothing. There were books, too, some of them simple romances but others more suited for children. An easel sat in one corner, with an inexpert watercolor of flowers on it. Gaily colored cushions covered the sleeping pallet. On a low table there was a collection of bright hair ribbons and jeweled clips and stones that seemed to serve no purpose but to be pretty stones.

  When Gavril saw her staring at the room, he looked abashed. "My mother . . ."

  "She is your mother. Nothing more needs to be said. She has not had an easy life."

  "No, she has not."

  "The house is empty then," she said. "That is why no archer attacked. They knew we were coming and left."

  "Yes . . ." He looked about, his green eyes dark with worry.

  "She's not here, Gavril," Moria said, her voice lowering. "If you are concerned that she is, and that harm has come to her, look about. There is no place for her to be."

  "Yes . . ." His gaze still surveyed the room.

  "Fine, we shall search. To ease your mind. Perhaps she hides--alive and safe--under a trapdoor or such
, and if so, we will leave her there, but you will know she is well."

  "Thank you."

  "I'll start in here. You take the kitchen."

  He nodded and left. Moria began her search, and as she hunted and moved aside Kiri's belongings, a clearer picture of the woman formed. Alvar had said she was as "empty-headed as one of her dolls." Moria now understood what he meant, at least about the dolls. As for the rest, she did not think Kiri Kitsune was a woman of low intelligence. Gavril was proof of that.

  Instead, she seemed a girl who had never quite become a woman, never been allowed to grow up, taken from her family and thrust into a loveless marriage where her only duty was to provide children, which she had not been terribly successful at. When she did give Alvar a son, any chance for her to mature with motherhood had also been wrenched away as her son was raised by others, returned to her when he was ten summers old.

  From what Moria knew of Gavril, he would have been ten summers going on twenty.

  "Where are you now, Kiri?" Moria whispered as she checked under the rugs and moved pillows, looking for a trapdoor. "You left quickly, taking none of your treasures. Did you leave willingly?"

  Moria suspected that, whatever the circumstances, Kiri had left willingly, regardless of whether those coming for her were friends or foes. Her life was one of being guided, day by day, step by step, and perhaps even kidnapping might have seemed only like the possibility for a change of scenery.

  At that thought, Moria looked about the dark and dreary room. Kiri's paintings did little to lift the gloom. Moria could not imagine Kiri stuck in this place, a woman who obviously loved color and beauty and worlds beyond her life's walls.

  That's when Moria saw the peephole. She'd been thinking that Kiri might insist on more, and as Moria scoured the wall, she'd noticed one painting, hung oddly low and quivering slightly, as if from a breeze.

  Behind that painting she found a hole, painstakingly dug into the mud wall. It was right beside Kiri's sleeping pallet, as if she'd lain here at night, staring out. Kept a prisoner in her own home, she'd had this one small act of rebellion, a peephole to freedom, perhaps even seeing haunting beauty in that desolate world. A lost girl who loved beauty and longed for freedom, had likely longed for it all her life.

  Moria bent to get a glimpse at Kiri's secret world and saw--

  A man's face. Moria fell back, her dagger raised. Then her mind replayed the image and . . .

  By the ancestors, that expression. The horror.

  It was not the face of a living man. His expression had told her that, as had the placement of his head, set below her direct line of vision.

  A head. Lying on the ground. She swallowed and glanced over her shoulder for Gavril. He was still busy in the next room. Good. He did not need to see this. Nor did she. However . . .

  She looked through the peephole again to assure herself she was correct. Yet she was not. She had imagined the poor man had been decapitated, but that wasn't the case. The case . . . She swallowed again and squeezed her eyes shut, but the image of the man's face was branded in her mind.

  Whatever she had seen in the villages--the horror on the faces of those cut down by their own families turned into monsters--it was not like this. Their deaths were not like this.

  The man had been buried alive to his neck. Then he'd been left there. Left to slowly die of dehydration in this desert-like wasteland. No one to hear his screams. No one to come to his aid. Trapped for days . . .

  Moria pulled back from the hole, her breath coming hard. Then she spotted something behind the man. Another head and shoulders. Another man buried and dead. And beside him, an old woman, her face twisted in a final scream.

  Moria raced from the room, stumbling over everything in her path. Gavril came running from the servants' quarters and she plowed into him, then pushed past.

  "S-stay here," she said, forcing the words out, her chest so tight she could barely breathe. "I'm going out, but you need to stay right here."

  "I don't--"

  She ran to him and grabbed his hands, startling him, and he stumbled back, but she kept hold of him. "Gavril, please? Just do as I ask. For once, do as I ask."

  "I don't understand."

  "Do you trust me?"

  "Of course."

  "Then stay here." She dropped his hands and ran for the door. She threw it open. Two bandits stood there as if listening in. She didn't look at them. Just said, "Keep him inside. Please," then ran behind the house, ignoring shouts to stay where she was.

  She rounded the rear of the house and stopped short. Five figures were buried there. Three guards. One old woman. Moria ran to the fifth figure. She dropped in front of her and pressed her hands against the woman's neck, knowing even as she did that the skin would be cold. Ice-cold.

  The woman had to be thirty-five summers, but she seemed so much younger. And she looked . . . Moria let out a heaved breath, tears prickling her eyes.

  She looked like Gavril. Like an older sister. A beautiful woman with skin as dark as her hair, short curls wrapped in bright ribbons, like a child's. And her expression . . . That was a child's, too, and it was Gavril's as well, that look on his face when he'd witnessed the massacre and again today, when he'd realized the bandits were going after his mother. Shock and confusion. The other victims looked terrified. Kiri Kitsune looked bewildered and lost, a little girl who did not understand what had happened and, moreover, why it had happened to her. And that was the worst of it, the look on her face.

  Moria looked over at the bandits, who had now come to the side of the house, watching her, and she swore a couple of them were smirking. As if they'd already seen this, circling the house earlier. Seen it and yet played out the sadistic game, letting Gavril look inside for his mother, perhaps being relieved she'd escaped and then coming out to find . . .

  Her hand tightened on her dagger, red-hot rage filling her. Then she heard a shout followed by running footsteps, and she forgot about the bandits. She raced back around the house just as Gavril appeared. She charged toward him and stopped so suddenly that he smacked into her.

  "No," she said.

  He reached as if to shove her aside.

  "No, Gavril." She put her hands against his chest, pushing him back, and she knew the bandits would realize there was more between them than hate, but she didn't care. Nothing mattered now except stopping him from seeing what lay behind the house.

  "Keeper . . ." he said, his voice low.

  "She's gone," Moria said quickly.

  His breath caught. "My mother--"

  "--is dead. She's been murdered, and I'll not have you see her. Not like that."

  "I must--"

  "No." She looked up into his face. "Do you remember my father? The last time I saw him? I would give anything to pluck that image from my mind, and if I can block this from yours, then I will."

  "How was she--?"

  "No."

  "I--"

  "No!"

  He stepped sideways then, too fast for her to stop, and she lunged into his path, but he'd frozen there, staring. When she glanced over her shoulder, she could see one of the buried guards.

  The look on his face was the exact image of his mother's final one. Loss and confusion and disbelief. Moria struggled to keep her voice steady as she said, "Please, Gavril. Don't take another step."

  "I need . . . I need . . ." He swallowed hard and looked away from the dead guard. "She must be buried."

  "Looks like she already is," one of the bandits said, but Moria spun on him, and he had the decency to close his mouth.

  "I must dig her out and bury her properly," Gavril said.

  "I will."

  "You cannot, Keeper. Digging is a difficult chore."

  "I will. If these men wish to be gone before dawn, they will help me."

  Gavril started forward. "No, as her son, I must--"

  Her dagger tip flew to his throat. "I'm asking you to do one thing for me, Gavril. You will allow me to free your mother, and then y
ou will see her to say good-bye. You will help me bury her properly, and I will say the rites over her. But you will not take one more step in that direction until I summon you."

  "It is my duty. You ought not to have to."

  "I'm asking to do this." She wiggled the dagger against his throat. "Or insisting on it. Interpret as you wish."

  A slow nod. Then, gaze lowered, voice barely audible, he said, "Thank you, Keeper," and returned to the house without another look into the yard.

  SEVENTEEN

  Moria found shovels behind the house, abandoned after their gruesome task. The bandits didn't move, and her rage flared inside her thinking of the terrible trick they'd played on Gavril, ready to challenge them on it. Then Toman ordered one of his men to assist her, and she channeled Ashyn and tamped down that fury, knowing it would do no good and this was not the time. For Gavril's sake and for Kiri's, it was not the time.

  How much the bandit actually helped dig that hole was debatable. It was long and exhausting work, and by the end of it, Moria was ready to collapse, every muscle quivering.

  At one point Toman had offered the opinion that it was unnecessary, that he could simply take Kiri's head for her bounty, since that was exposed. But he seemed to be more taunting her than seriously suggesting it, and at a snarl from Moria, he'd chuckled and wisely wandered off without pressing the matter.

  Finally, she had Kiri out. The bandit did not help with that, leaving her struggling to pull the corpse from the loosened earth. She managed it and then insisted on help to carry Kiri to the side of the house, so Gavril would not see that telltale hole or the horrible faces of the other victims.

  Kiri had been bound hand and foot. Marks on her cheeks suggested she'd been gagged. Had they sedated their victims to keep them from struggling as the holes were filled? Moria did not know which was worse--to be conscious in that hole as the dirt fell around you or to wake trapped in your grave. She knew only that, once again, she wished she had not been blessed with such a vivid imagination.

  The whole time she'd been digging Kiri out, her mind had plagued her with scenarios, not only of the victims but of those who'd carried out the horrible task. How could they fill in those holes? How could they rip off the gags and walk away, casually dropping their shovels behind the house, listening to the cries and the pleas of five innocent victims, knowing the unimaginable torment they faced in the days before death would come? How does one do such a thing and remain human?